Shinpaugh, William H. (Bill)

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ORAL HISTORY OF WILLIAM H. (BILL) SHINPAUGH
Interviewed by Don Hunnicutt
Filmed by BBB Communications, LLC.
October 30, 2012
MR. HUNNICUTT: This interview is for the Center of Oak Ridge Oral History. The date is October 30, 2012. I am Don Hunnicutt in the home of Bill Shinpaugh, 1124 Treymour Way, Knoxville, Tennessee. We're here to talk about early history prior to Oak Ridge and Oak Ridge in the Wheat Community, in the Hardin Valley Area. Please state your full name.
MR. SHINPAUGH: My name is William H. Shinpaugh, William Hodge Shinpaugh, Jr.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Your date and birth. Place of birth.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Okay, I was born on April 27th of 1930.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And where was that?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I was born in Hardin Valley, on a farm in Hardin Valley.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What is your father's name?
MR. SHINPAUGH: William Hodge Shinpaugh, Sr.
MR. HUNNICUTT: His date and place of birth.
MR. SHINPAUGH: He was born in Knox County on March the 21st, 1900.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How about your mother's date of birth and place of birth?
MR. SHINPAUGH: My mother was Zelma Young Hudson Shinpaugh and she was born on June the 4th, 1903, in West Knox County.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did they live when they were married?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Okay, when they were married, they lived in Lenoir City. My father was an insurance agent in the early days until the Depression came and of course he lost his job and went to tenant farming, share cropping.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall your mother's father’s name?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, his name was William Mayo Hudson.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And his birthplace, do you recall where he was born?
MR. SHINPAUGH: He was – I don't remember whether he was born in Roane County or Knox County, but I believe he was born in Roane County but I'm not sure or he could have been born in Anderson County.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your grandfather? What is his name?
MR. SHINPAUGH: His name was Ulysis Grant Shinpaugh and he was born in Roane County to Calvin C. Shinpaugh who was born in 1842.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you know where your mother and father met?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I am not sure about that, probably in the church.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall where they lived when they got married?
MR. SHINPAUGH: The first place I know of them living after they were married was in Lenoir City. That was where my father went to high school and he graduated there in 1918, and he got a job in the insurance business there, but he was born in Knox County.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall where they moved to after that?
MR. SHINPAUGH: They moved to Hickory Creek Road on a farm on Hickory Creek Road in West Knox County.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your father's school history? Do you recall what schooling he had?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I know that he had a high school education which was sort of special back in the early 1900s, but he graduated from Lenoir City High School and his father who ran a store in West Knox County, sent him to Lenoir City to school and he boarded with friends down there to go to high school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your mother's school history?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Okay, my mother went to Old Hardin Valley School that not many people know about. It was on the corner of Campbell Station Road and Hardin Valley Road and they also had an elementary school that she went to part of the time in a community called Stony Point which is on the – I believe that’s Stony Point road, but it's off of Gallaher Ferry Road. But the Stony Point Community had an elementary school for small children. Then after she left there she went to the Hardin Valley School which really had two grades of high school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Gallaher Ferry Road, that's on the Oak Ridge reservation?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No, that's in Knox County. It's the one that goes down to the Clinch River, or did before Melton Hill Dam closed down this circle from Hardin Valley Road down to Clinch River and back on to Hickory Creek Road. That was the one that the Gallaher Ferry was on. The people from the Scarboro Community in Oak Ridge used that ferry and the Knox County people to go back and forth.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you have any brothers and sisters?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I have one brother, dead, John Edward and I have a brother Mayo Shinpaugh that is eighty-eight years old and still living and in good health. And I have a sister that will be ninety this year.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, Bill tell me about the first school that you went to and where was it?
MR. SHINPAUGH: The first school that I went to was Hardin Valley on Hardin Valley Road and I started there in 1937. The odd thing about that is that when I was six years old the doctor told my parents not to send me to school because I wouldn’t live through the first grade. I have no idea what was wrong with me. They never did know, but anyway seventy-five or seventy-six years later I’m still living.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, at that particular school you went from – through what grades?
MR. SHINPAUGH: First through the 8th grade.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And then...
MR. SHINPAUGH: And then I attended Karns High School four years.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me a little bit about how it was in the first to 8th grade, do you recall? What kind of dress did you have when you went to school? How’d you dress?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, we just wore overalls or blue jeans, but we always had to have a shirt you know one with the collar normally and – but blue jeans and overalls is most what because we were in a farming community and everybody there were farm people.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, tell me about how it was in the classroom?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Oh, in the classroom they had good discipline. At that time the teachers had complete control and if you got in trouble in school you were in trouble at home and we had no discipline problems. We never had bullies in school because we all had to work when we got home so you didn't feel like being a bully.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So the teachers were pretty strict?
MR. SHINPAUGH: The teachers were pretty strict, fairly strict.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So what kind of punishment did they do when they had to give out punishment?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, it was usually a willow switch and I’ve had those used.
MR. HUNNICUTT: On your legs, hands?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Legs usually, not hands. I never had one to hit my hands; just legs.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, what kind of heat did you have in the school room?
MR. SHINPAUGH: We had the steam heat. We had steam radiators in every room. They had big radiators that hot water and steam went through and all of the steam lines were exposed, but they were insulated really good with asbestos, which is a no, no today, but anyway it was very good. We didn't have air conditioning. Of course, no one had air conditioning then.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What year are we talking about?
MR. SHINPAUGH: We’re talking about from 1937 to ‘44, ‘45.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Describe your desk. How was that laid out?
MR. SHINPAUGH: It was just a wood desk and the back of your seat was attached to the desk behind you, in the same way on each one of them. And they usually would attach those desks to the floor and sometimes they wouldn’t and students would get into trouble scooting the desk around.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have to sit boy-girl or could you sit wherever you wanted to?
MR. SHINPAUGH: You just sat wherever you wanted to in some classes and some teachers put you in by alphabetical order. I think if the teacher couldn’t remember your name, you were put in alphabetical order, but normally, wherever you sat the first day of school was your seat the rest of the year.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, what time of the morning did you have to be at school?
MR. SHINPAUGH: It seemed like it was 7:30. I believe or 8. Seven thirty or 8. Then we got out of school about 4. I believe it was 7:30 to 4 or 8 to 4. Sometimes 4:30.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you take your lunch to school?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, in elementary school, I did take my lunch, but they did have a cafeteria that you could eat in, but I normally had to take my lunch.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what you used to take or liked to eat?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, yes, I do; sausage and biscuits, country ham and biscuits because that's all we had and my mother made cinnamon rolls a lot. She’d usually have cinnamon rolls to take also with the ham and biscuit.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the drink of the day?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Water, usually out of the water fountain. We had water fountains and that's what we drank all of the time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That was pretty much the way it was first through 8th grade?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, when you went to Karns, how much difference was it at Karns?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, not really a lot; discipline-wise, there wasn’t any difference, but it was just you know, you were in bigger classes with people you didn't know as well. But, our classes when I was in high school, was small because our graduating class in 1949 had, I believe, forty-four or forty-five in the class. And everything – it was really good. Everybody enjoyed I think going to high school under those conditions because I knew every kid in high school by name.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you able to choose the classes you wanted to take?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Basically, you had classes that were mandatory, but we had very few you know side classes, but we all had to take English four years. Had to take Math at least three years and we had to take Science at least I believe two years then they had other classes; you could take Typing and History – you had to take History a certain number of years. Economics, we had economic class. Let's see, we had – I took Latin in high school which I thought was very important and we had Latin when I was freshmen, sophomore I think and - but we had Math – we didn't have a Math classes when we started high school. You started out in Algebra I, went to Algebra II, Geometry and then Solid Geometry, put it that way. We didn't have what they call Math classes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was your dress different when you went to high school?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No, not really. You had to wear the long pants and most of the time, they had a rule that you wore a shirt with a collar. It was just an everyday shirt because back then most of these kids at Karns came in out of farm communities. So they wore practically the same thing to school that they wore at home.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you participate in sports while you were in high school?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, I played basketball in high school and I played baseball. We didn't have a football team at that time, but I played both basketball and baseball.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What year did you graduate?
MR. SHINPAUGH: 1949.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you do after you graduated?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, after I graduated, my plans were to go to UT and walk-on in baseball, but I got injured in a tractor accident just after I got out of high school and I was paralyzed from my waist down. But my father took me to a chiropractor, this was in 1949, and I went to him for months and when the Korean War broke out in 1950, June ’50, he had me well enough I had to go to the Army. So, I always blame this chiropractor on making me go to the Army.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Let's talk a little more about Hardin Valley and you mentioned the Gallaher Ferry. Where was that located?
MR. SHINPAUGH: If you went from Hardin Valley Road down to Gallaher Ferry Road – it was Gallaher Ferry Road at that time. Just as you passed an old grist mill, Hendrick’s Grist Mill and just a short distance past the grist Mill, there was a stream of water, Conner Creek that the grist mill operated off of it and it ran into the river just below the grist mill. Then the Ferry was immediately past the mouth of the Conner Creek that went into the Clinch River.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And where did it exit on the other side?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Just right straight across and the road from there went straight into the Scarboro School area. The old Scarboro School and – but there was quite a bit of traffic there on that road going to and from Anderson County on the Gallaher Ferry. When I was young, a fellow by the name of Hodge Crawford operated that ferry and we called him ‘Catfish Crawford’ because at one time he caught a huge catfish out of that river.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall there was a fare for riding the ferry?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I don't think so. I don't think there was. I'm not sure about this, but I think he was paid by the county. He was just a county employee; they ran that ferry on a cable. They had a steel cable across the river and it had little wood hooks about 12 inches long that you could hook onto the cable and walk to the other end of the ferry and when I was young, I’d go down there and ride that ferry back and forth across – I thought I was helping because I used one of the wood hooks. I probably wasn’t helping much, but anyway I enjoyed riding the ferry across.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, what kind of traffic did the ferry carry?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, mostly just farm people going back and forth to visit people. Most of the people were related out of that part of Knox County with the people in Anderson County and Roane County. They were all related people and it carried old pick-up trucks with farm supplies on it. People sometime brought the produce that farmers in Anderson County grew across the ferry and take it to Knoxville.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Could you get more than one truck on there?
MR. SHINPAUGH: You could get, if I remember right about two small pick-up trucks on the ferry.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, that road by Scarboro School I think it’s the road that today goes out to the park and it goes straight across where the city pumps their water.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I think that's where you’re talking about.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: -the ferry.
MR. SHINPAUGH: But it did – the road came around the side hill – it was a hilly country there and up by the side of the old Scarboro School.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember the Solway Bridge - the old Solway Bridge?
MR. SHINPAUGH: It was built the year I was born, 1930.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall seeing it built?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No, that was the year I was born when they built it so I don't recall anything on that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Okay, tell me some more about growing up in that area –the Hardin Valley Area and then where did you live there and come over in or tell me about coming over into the Wheat Area.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Okay, when I was very, very young, I was in elementary school 2nd grade or 3rd –somewhere around there my father was building for Mr. T.L. Seibers who owned a lot of property and a lot of buildings in Clinton in the Robertsville Community and West Knox County. He was building for him so we moved over on one of his farms in Robertsville so he would be close to the work he was doing for Mr. Seibers. He worked for T.L. Seibers and Mr. Clyde Peak. Clyde Peak lived right across the street from the Courthouse in Clinton in a big brick home. But he did a lot of building for them and that was the reason we lived there in the Robertsville Community. Our house was directly behind where the Wildcat Den is now. There are some cedar trees up there on that bank and our house was right beside those cedar trees.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, that’s Robertsville Road, 102 Robertsville Road is –.
MR. SHINPAUGH: It was on Robertsville Road, yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: ...where the community, the Town Community Center is at Wildcat Den.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, tell me about Robertsville related to Oak Ridge today. Where was Robertsville in that area?
MR. SHINPAUGH: That area there was the Robertsville Community. The big house next to the Bowling Alley was a big ole’ farm house Mr. Seibers also owned and my uncle lived in it for a while. He was also building for Mr. Seibers. William Lockett had a store there and on the other side of the road that turned down to Wheat, some people by the name of Keyes, had a store there; that was the only two stores there. But let's see what else was there; the swimming pool, when we lived there was a lake, and that’s where I used to play and get muddy. I fished in that lake a lot.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How old were you when you moved to the house there on Robertsville?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I was about, I don't know, nine or ten years old.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me a little bit more about the lake where the swimming pool is today?
MR. SHINPAUGH: It was cold. I say that because I fell in it a lot of times. It was fed by the big spring that’s there. It was a pretty good sized lake. I don't know, I would guess that the lake probably covered close to half an acre. We also raised some cattle on that place.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they graze in the lake?
MR. SHINPAUGH: They used the lake for the water.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I've seen photographs with cows in the water before.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Oh yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall a cabin in that area, a fish camp there?
MR. SHINPAUGH: There was a little cabin next to the spring. A little log cabin there next to the spring, but my mother never allowed us to go in it or do anything with it because it didn't belong to us so she wouldn’t allow us to go in it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned Lockett store. That today is on the corner of Robertsville and –
MR. SHINPAUGH: It’s a beer joint, last time I saw it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: It used to be called Cross Roads Tavern.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Cross Roads Tavern, that’s right.
MR. HUNNICUTT: It’s changed its name. There's another restaurant and another business there today.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Oh, I haven’t seen it in years.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was the other store that you mentioned located?
MR. SHINPAUGH: There was a road that went down by the old Robertsville High School. My older brother went to Robertsville High School and just right across at the side road was the Keyes Store.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about the Lockett store? Did you ever go in there?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Oh, every day, practically. Ms. Lockett was a jewel. She used to give me a piece of candy every time I’d go in the store. She and my mother were real good friends. In fact, my mother visited her after they left the Oak Ridge area. The Locketts were really nice people.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember Nash Copeland having a store?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, Jay Nash had a store there and Jay Glen had a store, I believe on up towards Clinton; Jay Glen Copeland.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where you ever in any of those stores?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, I was in both of those.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Let's go back to the Lockett Store a minute. Describe what you remember how the inside of that store looked like.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Oh goodness. It was just a – I don't know. It was a pretty good size, a little county store and they had a – they carried a lot of goods in there. They had some dry goods which most of the country stores carried and shoes and different things that farm people would use. I remember one story about Mr. Lockett, well it wasn’t a story, it happened. He had, I believe a ‘39 Chevrolet, and of course he bought eggs from the local people and he was taking them to Clinton one time in the back of his Chevrolet car. He ran off the road going to Clinton and turned it over. I remember that story.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The house that you referred to over in the middle of what? It’s now in the middle of Grove's Center used to be next to the Grove Theater. Who did you say lived in that house?
MR. SHINPAUGH: My uncle lived there a while and I was trying to remember the old people that lived there before and I cannot remember their names. Sometimes I remember their names, but we named the house after them. We called it their Old Home Place.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall any other houses right in that area?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Okay, there was a fellow that lived on that road between where we lived and Locketts store. A couple lived there, that were older, in a little house close to that church. Now, my older brother could tell you their names, but I cannot remember. But it was just an older couple and I don't think they had children because I never did see anyone there. I used to stop and talk to them a lot when I was a kid.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, was there any other children around that area that you played with?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, there was some Justice kids lived just up the road from us. In fact, one of the girls, Norma Jean Justice, she’s dead now. I went to elementary school with her over at Scarboro and she had a brother. The high school is now where the old Roberts Farm was. That's where the community got its name and Louise Roberts, the daughter of the Roberts couple, was my school teacher at Scarboro. When I started high school in Karns, she was teaching there. She was married – well, I can't remember who she married, but I don't know whether she’s still living or not. Her brother I think, is still living but he has to be up in his upper 80s. Anyway, I can’t remember –.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall the Justice living in that house by where we talked by the theater at one time?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I don't remember the Justice living there. The Justice I was talking about lived across the road from us, but just up the road just a short distance.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, let’s back up a minute to this –.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Now, there were Justices that lived in a big white house down next to the old Robertsville High School.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about Scarboro School. Did you go there after they rebuilt the school I think the first school caught on fire and they had to rebuild the first school?
MR. SHINPAUGH: They build a new school there before I started there, but it was fairly new when I started, I think, I was in the 3rd grade. This new school had an indoor gym, which was unusual for elementary schools, and they also had a big playground behind the school. They had all kinds of merry-go-rounds, monkey bars, and swings. It was a fantastic set-up for that time and we changed classes every hour which they found out later didn't work especially for elementary school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you get back and forth to school?
MR. SHINPAUGH: School bus.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And where did you get picked up by the school bus?
MR. SHINPAUGH: School bus picked me up in front of the house, in front of our house. It was just a short distance over to the school though from there. The old road goes off of Illinois over by Y-12, its pretty close to where the road that went to Scarboro School.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Through the gap at Y-12?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yeah, through that gap. Had to go through that gap and there was a church there on the left just before you got to school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: New Hope?
MR. SHINPAUGH: New Hope, yes and one of my teachers at Scarboro was Mrs. Anderson. She lived in the house right close to the east end of Y-12, where it is now. I believe where that new building is that they built.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was the road gravel or paved?
MR. SHINPAUGH: It was gravel.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, that we called the Oak Ridge Turnpike, which was Highway 95 in those days.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that road paved or did you remember?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I cannot remember, that would have been in the early 40s, ‘40, ‘41 or ‘42. I can't remember whether they were paved or not.
MR. HUNNICUTT: My understanding is the road came and turned on Robertsville came up by your house to Lockett store.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Then turned right and went towards what we call Illinois Avenue now over towards Oliver Springs, is that what you remember?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Now, the road that went to Oliver Springs went by Lockett store and Keyes Store and made a bend and went up across the ridge into Oliver Springs.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Is that pretty much in the same location as Illinois is today?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I think its pretty close.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about Jay Nash Copeland Store? Tell me what you remember about it.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, I just remember going in it, we traded most of the time at Lockett’s because they were close. I could walk there so I used to walk to the store and get what we needed.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was there anything building-wise between Jay Nash’s Store and where you lived on the highway there?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, the Justice family lived there and the Roberts family big house was up on the hill right where the high school is. That's about all I can remember through there and I guess it’s because I knew the Justice kids and I knew the Roberts family.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, you mentioned another store that Mr. Copeland’s brother owned is that correct?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Jay Nash had a store and Jay Glen had a store.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And his store was on the East end of –?
MR. SHINPAUGH: It was up on the East end on the left of the road, I think.
MR. HUNNICUTT: In a house like?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, in a house like.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That's what – by Elza Gate.
MR. SHINPAUGH: I know, yes, just before we get to Elza Gate. But it was on the left; a white house there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were all these stores about the same as far as what they sold?
MR. SHINPAUGH: They are about the same, yes!
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they allow credit?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Most stores did back then because that's what broke my grandfather during the Depression. Credit broke him. I used to have his ledger with all the credit in it. I don't know what happened – but I did have it at one time. That was something that got a lot of stores in trouble during the Depression. People just didn’t have any money.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned your brother going to Robertsville School?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was Robertsville School located?
MR. SHINPAUGH: It was down sort of west of the Lockett Store on the left back in there. I think there is another school about the same place now.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Robertsville School today is on the location?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Junior high.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Same location?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, it's right where the old school was. Now, this Justice family that lived there lived in a big white house real close to the old high school because I remember they had a daughter that was a really good basketball player.
MR. HUNNICUTT: At that time, what kind of work did your father do?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Carpenter work. He was a builder. He built houses, barns. He did that most of the time, repair work on buildings that Mr. Seibers and Mr. Peak owned.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did he stay pretty much employed during those days?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, pretty much.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you know what kind of money he made?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I don't have any idea. Not much.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did the house you lived in have running water in the house?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How about bathroom? Was it inside or out?
MR. SHINPAUGH: It was outside.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So where did you get your water?
MR. SHINPAUGH: We had a well or a cistern or something there. I don’t know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you say cistern, what is a cistern?
MR. SHINPAUGH: It's just a hole in the ground that’s been concreted that you put rain water into and hold.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Just a backup?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: In case the well goes dry?
MR. SHINPAUGH: And we did use a lot of water out of that spring back behind the house. That was pretty good water back at that time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: There was a pretty good place to hold water, wasn’t it?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, we didn’t mind it, we were – I don't know. You know, we didn’t’ pay attention to things like that because that’s what everybody did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, the area we're talking about is what’s known as Grove Center Shopping Area today. Other than the house that you described that was by the Grove Theater that we know today? What else was in that area? We mentioned Lockett Store and then a couple of – a church and your house and that house.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Keyes store and I wish I could remember the name of the people that lived there, in another house, but there weren’t many houses there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever hear a story about gold being buried in that area some time ago?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No, I haven’t heard that one.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Supposedly, there’s supposed to have been gold buried in that area in the Grove area and some time back.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, now I think that is where they got the name ‘Grove Center’, you remember there’s a big grove of big oak trees there. That's where we used to play.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I think most of those trees are gone, but there’s still some left.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yeah, there was a huge grove of big oak trees in there. It was a real nice place.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, what did you do for fun when you were growing up in that area?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, I fished in that lake most of the time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, we’re talking about the pond where the swimming pool is?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Where the swimming pool is now. I used to catch a lot of these little fish they call sun perch, the little fancy colored fish. Of course, we always threw them back, but we caught a lot out of them.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, let's go back down the road a piece to Wheat. Tell me about your connection with the Wheat Community.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Okay, now my connection with Wheat Community is my mother's people, who were all Hudsons and they all lived in Roane County, down at Wheat. My great aunt and my grandfather went to Roane College.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Let me state for the record. Tell me where Wheat Community was located. Let's get that out first.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well to me, it was a pretty large community. Most of these rural communities was pretty large. You know, covering a lot of territory, but not many houses and it was just on the east side out of K-25. It’s what I thought of as Wheat when we went down there to church, but my mother's people was scattered all over Roane County. My great, great grandfather Hudson, William W. Hudson lived in the Gravel Hill Community, which it is in Roane County.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, where is Gravel Hill Community?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Gravel Hill is between the X-10 plant and the Clinch River just about, I don't know 4-500 yards from Tower Shielding facility. And that was a community that had a little small church and a one room school house. My great, great grandfather William W. Hudson, I think at one time was postmaster there. There were very few people in that community and he and his wife are buried in that community, close to where the church was.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Back to the Wheat area, what do you remember that was in Wheat? What was there?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, about all I remember being there was the Roane College and some churches and peach orchards. Now, this area that Oak Ridge is in now and downward to Kingston at one time was a huge peach growing area. Back when I was a child, they’d haul peaches out of there, but I think they brought some out on a train. But there was enormous peach orchards down through there. I remember we used to get peaches at Elrod’s Peach Orchards.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was that located?
MR. SHINPAUGH: That was where Oak Ridge is now, but it was the best I remember in the eastern part of Oak Ridge, what Oak Ridge is now. They was up on that ridge. We used to go there every year and get peaches from Mr. Elrod. I remember he was that little short chubby guy, that’s about all I remember, but we called it Elrod's Peach Orchards.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, back in the Wheat Community, do you remember Wheat School?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I just barely remember Wheat School. When we were kids very young, we went down there to see Robertsville and Wheat play basketball and I cannot remember much about their school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, your relatives that were in the Wheat area, where did they live? Do you recall?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Goodness, well, the ones we visited mostly was in the southern part of the county over in the X-10 area. They lived down that valley where X-10 is now, all the way over to the river.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Bethel Valley?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Bethel Valley, yes. They lived in Bethel Valley, some of them lived on down where the road goes to what is now 321 that comes across there?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Ninety-five?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, ninety-five is what it is, where it crosses the river at Old White Wing Bridge and goes in towards K-25 area. A lot of them lived down through there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall how you got paid – how did you travel in those days?
MR. SHINPAUGH: My father had, what was it? The first vehicle I remember him having was a ‘27 Model Chevrolet. Then we had, I believe a ‘30 Model Chevrolet after that. Then we had a ‘39 Chevrolet car.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall the people you visited over in the Bethel Valley area? What type of homes they lived in?
MR. SHINPAUGH: They were just small frame homes. Most of them had weather boarding which was common back then. What they called weather boarding was the ‘H’ board lapped over the other one and a lot of them just had plank straight up and down boards on the outside.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember what they did for income?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I reckon all of them farmed.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So back over in the Wheat Community, tell me about the college that you recall that was there.
MR. SHINPAUGH: I just remember going to it. You know, I don't remember much about what they had, but it was a big multi-story building. Most of the kids there went in and stayed in dorm rooms and I know my grandfather graduated there in 1897 and my great aunt, she graduated there in 1895.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What were their names?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Hudson, William Mayo Hudson was one that graduated there in ‘97 and Seffie Hudson was the one graduated in 1895.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned a church. Where was the church located?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Best I remember, the church was east, just east of the school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Is that George Jones?
MR. SHINPAUGH: George Jones Church, yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you have relatives buried in that cemetery?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I'm not sure. I think I do, but I haven’t been able to find them, but I think I have relatives buried there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you attend church there at one time?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No, we just went over there to things, like they used to have an all-day singing with what they call “dinner on the ground” and we’d go to those, but my Hudsons relatives went there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So when you’re talking about “dinner on the ground”, what’s that mean?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Means everybody brought a picnic lunch and they set up a table. They set sawhorses up and put boards on them and they’d have table cloths they put over them to make it look pretty good. And everybody brought food and you just helped yourself to it, no matter who brought it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember how old you were when you went to those?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I was probably ten; anywhere from probably eight up through twelve or so.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were your parents pretty strict on you when you were growing up, you and your brothers and sisters?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Oh yes. Well, I don’t know whether you called it strict or not. They expected us to help and of course we had to work. I know when I was in high school, my father at that time was working for TVA on the dams and I’d go home after baseball practice and have to feed the cattle and milk and things like that. We’d have to get up early in the morning and milk the cows before we went to school, but you know everybody did it so it was a way of life. It wasn’t bad.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you went to these singings and “dinner on the ground” did your parents make you go in the church and listen to the singing or –?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No, we all just went. I mean there weren’t’ any questions asked. That was what you did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned your father worked with TVA on the dams. What dam was that he worked at?
MR. SHINPAUGH: He worked down on the Fontana, Watts Bar, Fort Loudon.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was he a carpenter?
MR. SHINPAUGH: He was a carpenter.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, when he worked on the dams, was he gone from home –.
MR. SHINPAUGH: He had to go and stay – they came home on the weekends. Usually, there would be several men around that went and they car pooled back and forth.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where you the man of the house when your father was gone?
MR. SHINPAUGH: After my brothers left, yes, I was the only one there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: In the pecking order, where did you fall?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I was last so everybody wore the clothes before I got them.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, what age differences were between your brothers?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I'm 82, my brother is 88. I had another brother that is dead. He was two years older. He’d be eighty-four. My sister is 90.
MR. HUNNICUTT: By the time you got hand me down clothes, what kind of shape were they in?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Oh, they wasn’t too bad. We didn’t pay attention to that; what kind of shape it was. It’s just what you did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your mother do all the mending of the clothes?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did she make clothes?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, she made some clothes. Sometimes she’d make me shirts and things. My wife even did that after I worked at X-10.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What else can you tell me about the Wheat Community?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, I just can't remember much about it except it was – to me it was just a typical old farm community like Oak Ridge, or Grove Center, or Robertsville at that time. It was just a typical old farm community where people worked from daylight until dark and on Sundays they’d visit after church and set on the porch and talk.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned a ferry. Was there another ferry across the Clinch River in that area?
MR. SHINPAUGH: There was one at White Wing.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, White Wing, tell me where that was.
[Conversation interrupted 49:56]
MR. SHINPAUGH: That’s the old highway 95. They put a pontoon bridge in there when they built Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you know how it got its name, White Wing?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No, I do not.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was there another ferry down-stream from White Wing?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I'm not sure whether there was going down to Gallaher – what’s that road that goes down there? There may have been another ferry down there and in the early days say in the 30s, but seems there was another ferry that was down below the Wheat Community. We didn't go that far down very often because back then living in a farm community, you didn’t get too far away from home. You didn't have time to travel or anything. I'm not really sure about that, but seem like I remember people talking about a ferry down below Wheat.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, when your family went somewhere that was basically to visit people that you knew?
MR. SHINPAUGH: It was normally to visit people we knew, yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You had no vacation times back in those days?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No, we didn't – vacation? That word hadn’t been invented then. Vacations came along later.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, after you graduated from high school, tell me again where you lived at that particular point.
MR. SHINPAUGH: We lived in the lower end of Hardin Valley on Hickory Creek Road. MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, which school are we talking about?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Karns.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Okay, when Karns played Oak Ridge –.
[Conversation interrupted 51:56]
MR. SHINPAUGH: When we played Oak Ridge, we had to stop and get passes. Everybody on the bus had to get off and get a pass. In 1949, I think that was the first time we got to just drive on through to Oak Ridge, play baseball.
MR. HUNNICUTT: We’ll get to that in the minute. Let's go back down to the Wheat Area a little bit more. There was a school and then George Jones Church, Roane College; was that the name of the college?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Roane College? That was the name.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall any other buildings in that area?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Goodness, I know my wife's great uncle had a store there. Charlie McKinney had a store there not too far from that church.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Typical dry goods, canned goods and stuff?
[Conversation interrupted 52:54]
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, just a typical little country store. But my grandfather that had a store in West Knox County, he ran a rolling store all over through the Wheat Community.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you mean by rolling store?
MR. SHINPAUGH: He had a truck with the van bed on it and selected groceries in it and he’d go out through the community and they knew when he was coming. He’d buy chickens and eggs from them and trade them groceries for the eggs and chickens. Then, on a certain day of the week he went to Knoxville in his truck and sold all of those eggs and chickens.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When did you meet your wife? Well, let me back up you this question. When you were in high school, did you do a lot of dating or did you have time for that?
MR. SHINPAUGH: We didn’t have a whole lot of time for that. We didn't date much because if you lived in the country on a farm, you just didn’t have time for dating.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, how did you meet your wife?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, we were born on adjoining farms. So I told somebody one time, they asked me about it, I said there was only a barbed wire fence between us.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, how long did you date before you got married and where did you get married?
MR. SHINPAUGH: We got married, let’s see we dated, I don’t know since all through high school and then I went to the Army and spent about two and half years from 1950 to late ’52. And we got married in ‘53 at Mt. Pleasant Church in West Knox County. It was right next door to my grandfather's old country store.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you live when you first got married?
MR. SHINPAUGH: We rented an apartment on Linden Avenue in Knoxville and I was working at K-25.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you do at K-25?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I was a Process Operator in the Gaseous Diffusion Plant. I worked in K-33.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what year was that?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I worked there from a – I got out of the Army in late ’52, I think in November, and I worked there from then until 1960, and I transferred to X-10 in 1960.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me a little bit what you remember when you first went to work at K-25.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, I thought it was a big place because I just came out of the Army and went to work there. I was amazed at all the big buildings. We had to go to school for a year to work in cascade operations. We had taken courses in the gaseous diffusion process.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, when you went to work, did you recognize the area where you visited as a young boy?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Oh yes, I recognized the area. It looked just it did, especially the church up there and things. And across from the K-25 plant, it all looked the same, but no houses. There wasn’t any houses anywhere, but it looked about the same.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Back up, let's go back to when you used to come to Oak Ridge from Karns High School to play basketball against the Oak Ridge –.
[Conversation interrupted 56:44]
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, we played most of the time baseball with them.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Baseball?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Once in a while, we’d play them in basketball, but not very often. We played them every year in baseball two or three games.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, what was the procedure for getting in to Oak Ridge since it was fenced in?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, we'd be in a school bus and we’d come in to the guard station and we'd all get off of the bus and sign in. I think we signed a book if I remember right and then they would issue us a little tag called ‘temporary badge’. I don't know how many people lost it, but you know giving a kid playing baseball, a badge is not very good. But anyway, it wasn’t all that bad but just time consuming. Then we’d had to stop coming out and turned those tags in.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I meant to ask you, where did your family move to when the Manhattan Project came in and you had to leave the area?
MR. SHINPAUGH: We moved to Clinton for a short time. We moved to, I believe it was Depot Street in Clinton because I remember we lived close to Henderson Hardware. That’s where I hung out as a kid because the hardware store was sort of fascinating.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that Henderson or Hendricks?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Henderson.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Henderson used to be a Hendrickson, Hendrick's Hardware –.
MR. SHINPAUGH: They had a grocery store and hardware. They had everything in this general store. In fact, they still have a store right outside of Clinton towards Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I don't think so. That's probably the same one what I'm thinking about.
MR. SHINPAUGH: It may have been Hendrickson, but I remember it [inaudible 58:38] Henderson but it may have been Hendrickson.
MR. HUNNICUTT: They were located between Oak Ridge and Clinton on the old road for a long time.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Then they moved over into to Clinton.
MR. SHINPAUGH: But during that time when we lived there, they were just across the railroad from downtown Clinton.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about the gate opening in Oak Ridge? Do you recall that?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, I just remember they had a big ceremony and I'm not sure – I don't believe we went.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That would have been in March of 1949.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, I know it was before we played baseball in ‘49 because – so it had to be in the early spring because we went in without having to sign in.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did your parents feel when they had to be out of Oak Ridge in a certain period of time?
MR. SHINPAUGH: They thought nothing about it. They just moved and that was it. They didn't think anything about it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your parents own the land they lived on?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No, they lived on the Lawrence Seibers property because that’s who he was working for and my father owned a farm in the Hickory Creek Community, West of Hardin Valley during that time. He owned a farm down there and he bought that farm off of Clyde Peak and T.L. Seibers back – I was five, or six years old. And I remember the deal. I don't know why that stuck in my mind all of these years, but he and Mr. Peak met down there. Mr. Peak got him a plot deed and everything for it. And they shook hands and Mr. Peak said, “Pay me when you can”. That was their agreement.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Don't hear of that much today, do you?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No, that's not kosher today.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you and your wife live in Oak Ridge?
MR. SHINPAUGH: We lived on Hamilton Circle for about let's see about six or seven years.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of house was that?
MR. SHINPAUGH: It was a TDU, very well built building.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Describe the inside of that TDU.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Okay, we had two bedrooms in the end next to the joint where the two come together and a bath; good size bath. Good size bedrooms then we had a good sized living room and fairly good size kitchen.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How was that compared to where you first lived when you got married?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, it was better than what rented an apartment on Linden Avenue upstairs in an old home and it was better than the apartment we lived in.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what type of heat you have in the TDU?
MR. SHINPAUGH: We had electric heat. We bought large electric heaters and put in it. It did real well.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That was about 1952?
MR. SHINPAUGH: It was about 1954; and we bought electric heaters. It was a well-insulated building, very well-insulated.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember how much the room rent was per month?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No, I don't, seems like it was $30. I think when I hired in at K-25, I think I only made a dollar and sixty something cents an hour.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have a telephone when you lived on Hamilton Circle?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, we had a telephone.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you on a party line at that time?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No, we weren't.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You had an automobile by that time?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes. We had one car.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you worked at K-25, did you work shift work?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, I worked swing shift.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what's the swing shift?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I worked C shift. They had A, B, C and D shifts and they had them scheduled where you would work forty hours a week and you rotated. One week you’d worked midnight shift, one week day shift, one week evening shift and the fourth shift made it fill in. It worked very good, except the swing shift is not the way to work forever, but it's not bad. I've done worst.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your dress requirement when you worked to K-25?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Just work shirts and pants. We just wore very casual dress.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What you wore to work is what you worked in?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, we were not issued clothing or anything.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have to clock in and clock out?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, card clock.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about K-25. Did they have cafeterias? Where did you eat your lunch or supper?
MR. SHINPAUGH: They had a large cafeteria at K-25, but the swing shifters brought their lunch, practically all of them. And each one of the plants like 33 and 31 all had a little kitchen in the control room where you could bring things or you could bring soup and heat it up or – no microwaves. Microwaves weren’t around then, but you could cook things like heat your soup on the stove and had a refrigerator to keep things in it. It worked very good.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was the job hard?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No, it wasn't hard. It was tedious when you are operating gaseous diffusion equipment, you got to be really, really careful.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How tight was the security in those days?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Oh, it was very tight. If you went from one part of the building to the other or one plant to the other, you had to have they called ‘cover badges’. If I left 33 plant, went over to the top of the cascade, I had to get a cover badge to authorize me to be in there. It is just clipped over the top of your regular badge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your wife work when you were first married?
MR. SHINPAUGH: She worked at Liberty Mutual Insurance Company when we were first married.
MR. HUNNICUTT: While you lived in Oak Ridge?
MR. SHINPAUGH: While we lived in Knoxville and our first child was born and so she quit when she was pregnant with her first child. She didn't work anymore until the kids got up in high school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How long did you live in Oak Ridge?
MR. SHINPAUGH: About six or seven years.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall where you did your grocery shopping when you lived in Oak Ridge?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Over where the mall is now. The grocery store went out of – big chain that went out of business years ago.
MR. HUNNICUTT: A&P?
MR. SHINPAUGH: A&P. That's where we shopped at the A&P store mostly.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you lived in Oak Ridge, did you feel like you were safe living in the city?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Oh, yes I did. I never feel like I was unsafe anywhere. I never lived anywhere where I felt unsafe.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did any of your children attend the Oak Ridge schools?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No, they didn't. We moved out when they were young and they went to Karns to school then.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about living in Oak Ridge that you like the best?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, I played a lot of sports then and we had fast pitch softball after I quit playing baseball. I played baseball for Union Carbide when I first hired in there. Then they did away with the baseball program, then we started playing fast pitch softball and in the plants, each shift had their own team. We had a golf league, bowling league. Oh Lord, yes we bowled – it was unbelievable how many people in Oak Ridge bowled. I remember we bowled with Norm Rathbone and his wife and they named their team the ‘Shinbones’.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall where you bowled? What bowling center?
MR. SHINPAUGH: We bowled at both at Grove Center and over in – you know the over in the new shopping center.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The Arc Lanes?
MR. SHINPAUGH: The Arc Lanes. That was it, but we started at Grove Center.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How good were you in bowling?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, I’ll say that Rathbone and I were – Rathbone was really good bowler and I was pretty fair. I was good enough to bowl on commercial teams, but my wife had never bowled before so she had this huge handicap and we won that league the year we started.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you ever recall a team named the Pole Cats?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Pole Cats? Now, that seems familiar.
MR. HUNNICUTT: There was a team in town named the Pole Cats.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, that’s familiar.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you play your fast pitch softball?
MR. SHINPAUGH: We played them at Pine Top, Grove Center, down the [Oak Ridge] Turnpike. We played a lot down the Turnpike. Those fields – I don't remember all their names and faces, but I know we played some other place called Pine Top.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What position did you play?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I played third base or second base [inaudible 01:09:50].
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, each plant had teams and you competed against each other?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, each plant had their own league then sometimes we would play against the team in the other plants, but K-25, well the four shifts, each one of them had a team. Then there was teams of people that worked the day shift all of the time; maybe two or three. We’re talking about having a lot young people so we had a lot of sports going on because when you get that many young people together I guess Oak Ridge didn’t have many senior citizens back then.
MR. HUNNICUTT: They do now.
MR. SHINPAUGH: They do now. They got lots of them and those the ones I played softball with and against. And I remember one big ole’ boy that was our pitcher, Herm Steward. He averaged about thirteen, fourteen, fifteen strike outs a game. He could throw a soft ball that look like an aspirin coming at you Big Herm, I played with him for years. [Inaudible 11:06]. Oh goodness, Butter Davis.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Is there anything else we hadn’t covered if you like to talk about?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I don't know. I just enjoyed my time there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Sounds like you had a great time when you lived in Oak Ridge.
MR. SHINPAUGH: I did. I enjoyed living in Oak Ridge. I enjoyed it very much. We had a good time, had good neighbors, good area. As far as I am concerned it was great to live there. We went to Central Baptist Church. It was right below us. We could walk down there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Right.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yeah, we went to Central Baptist because it was close, in fact, we don't even walk down the road. We had a trail that went down the hill to it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, Bill it’s been my pleasure to interview you and I believe your all history will be a tribute to the history of Oak Ridge. Thank you very much!
MR. SHINPAUGH: I enjoyed it very much. Thank you!
[End of Interview]
***Editor’s Note: Portions of this transcript have been edited at Mr. Shinpaugh’s request. The corresponding audio and video components have remained unchanged.

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ORAL HISTORY OF WILLIAM H. (BILL) SHINPAUGH
Interviewed by Don Hunnicutt
Filmed by BBB Communications, LLC.
October 30, 2012
MR. HUNNICUTT: This interview is for the Center of Oak Ridge Oral History. The date is October 30, 2012. I am Don Hunnicutt in the home of Bill Shinpaugh, 1124 Treymour Way, Knoxville, Tennessee. We're here to talk about early history prior to Oak Ridge and Oak Ridge in the Wheat Community, in the Hardin Valley Area. Please state your full name.
MR. SHINPAUGH: My name is William H. Shinpaugh, William Hodge Shinpaugh, Jr.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Your date and birth. Place of birth.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Okay, I was born on April 27th of 1930.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And where was that?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I was born in Hardin Valley, on a farm in Hardin Valley.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What is your father's name?
MR. SHINPAUGH: William Hodge Shinpaugh, Sr.
MR. HUNNICUTT: His date and place of birth.
MR. SHINPAUGH: He was born in Knox County on March the 21st, 1900.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How about your mother's date of birth and place of birth?
MR. SHINPAUGH: My mother was Zelma Young Hudson Shinpaugh and she was born on June the 4th, 1903, in West Knox County.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did they live when they were married?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Okay, when they were married, they lived in Lenoir City. My father was an insurance agent in the early days until the Depression came and of course he lost his job and went to tenant farming, share cropping.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall your mother's father’s name?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, his name was William Mayo Hudson.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And his birthplace, do you recall where he was born?
MR. SHINPAUGH: He was – I don't remember whether he was born in Roane County or Knox County, but I believe he was born in Roane County but I'm not sure or he could have been born in Anderson County.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your grandfather? What is his name?
MR. SHINPAUGH: His name was Ulysis Grant Shinpaugh and he was born in Roane County to Calvin C. Shinpaugh who was born in 1842.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you know where your mother and father met?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I am not sure about that, probably in the church.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall where they lived when they got married?
MR. SHINPAUGH: The first place I know of them living after they were married was in Lenoir City. That was where my father went to high school and he graduated there in 1918, and he got a job in the insurance business there, but he was born in Knox County.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall where they moved to after that?
MR. SHINPAUGH: They moved to Hickory Creek Road on a farm on Hickory Creek Road in West Knox County.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your father's school history? Do you recall what schooling he had?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I know that he had a high school education which was sort of special back in the early 1900s, but he graduated from Lenoir City High School and his father who ran a store in West Knox County, sent him to Lenoir City to school and he boarded with friends down there to go to high school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about your mother's school history?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Okay, my mother went to Old Hardin Valley School that not many people know about. It was on the corner of Campbell Station Road and Hardin Valley Road and they also had an elementary school that she went to part of the time in a community called Stony Point which is on the – I believe that’s Stony Point road, but it's off of Gallaher Ferry Road. But the Stony Point Community had an elementary school for small children. Then after she left there she went to the Hardin Valley School which really had two grades of high school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Gallaher Ferry Road, that's on the Oak Ridge reservation?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No, that's in Knox County. It's the one that goes down to the Clinch River, or did before Melton Hill Dam closed down this circle from Hardin Valley Road down to Clinch River and back on to Hickory Creek Road. That was the one that the Gallaher Ferry was on. The people from the Scarboro Community in Oak Ridge used that ferry and the Knox County people to go back and forth.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you have any brothers and sisters?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I have one brother, dead, John Edward and I have a brother Mayo Shinpaugh that is eighty-eight years old and still living and in good health. And I have a sister that will be ninety this year.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, Bill tell me about the first school that you went to and where was it?
MR. SHINPAUGH: The first school that I went to was Hardin Valley on Hardin Valley Road and I started there in 1937. The odd thing about that is that when I was six years old the doctor told my parents not to send me to school because I wouldn’t live through the first grade. I have no idea what was wrong with me. They never did know, but anyway seventy-five or seventy-six years later I’m still living.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, at that particular school you went from – through what grades?
MR. SHINPAUGH: First through the 8th grade.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And then...
MR. SHINPAUGH: And then I attended Karns High School four years.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me a little bit about how it was in the first to 8th grade, do you recall? What kind of dress did you have when you went to school? How’d you dress?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, we just wore overalls or blue jeans, but we always had to have a shirt you know one with the collar normally and – but blue jeans and overalls is most what because we were in a farming community and everybody there were farm people.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, tell me about how it was in the classroom?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Oh, in the classroom they had good discipline. At that time the teachers had complete control and if you got in trouble in school you were in trouble at home and we had no discipline problems. We never had bullies in school because we all had to work when we got home so you didn't feel like being a bully.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So the teachers were pretty strict?
MR. SHINPAUGH: The teachers were pretty strict, fairly strict.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So what kind of punishment did they do when they had to give out punishment?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, it was usually a willow switch and I’ve had those used.
MR. HUNNICUTT: On your legs, hands?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Legs usually, not hands. I never had one to hit my hands; just legs.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, what kind of heat did you have in the school room?
MR. SHINPAUGH: We had the steam heat. We had steam radiators in every room. They had big radiators that hot water and steam went through and all of the steam lines were exposed, but they were insulated really good with asbestos, which is a no, no today, but anyway it was very good. We didn't have air conditioning. Of course, no one had air conditioning then.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What year are we talking about?
MR. SHINPAUGH: We’re talking about from 1937 to ‘44, ‘45.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Describe your desk. How was that laid out?
MR. SHINPAUGH: It was just a wood desk and the back of your seat was attached to the desk behind you, in the same way on each one of them. And they usually would attach those desks to the floor and sometimes they wouldn’t and students would get into trouble scooting the desk around.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have to sit boy-girl or could you sit wherever you wanted to?
MR. SHINPAUGH: You just sat wherever you wanted to in some classes and some teachers put you in by alphabetical order. I think if the teacher couldn’t remember your name, you were put in alphabetical order, but normally, wherever you sat the first day of school was your seat the rest of the year.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, what time of the morning did you have to be at school?
MR. SHINPAUGH: It seemed like it was 7:30. I believe or 8. Seven thirty or 8. Then we got out of school about 4. I believe it was 7:30 to 4 or 8 to 4. Sometimes 4:30.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you take your lunch to school?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, in elementary school, I did take my lunch, but they did have a cafeteria that you could eat in, but I normally had to take my lunch.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what you used to take or liked to eat?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, yes, I do; sausage and biscuits, country ham and biscuits because that's all we had and my mother made cinnamon rolls a lot. She’d usually have cinnamon rolls to take also with the ham and biscuit.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was the drink of the day?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Water, usually out of the water fountain. We had water fountains and that's what we drank all of the time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That was pretty much the way it was first through 8th grade?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, when you went to Karns, how much difference was it at Karns?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, not really a lot; discipline-wise, there wasn’t any difference, but it was just you know, you were in bigger classes with people you didn't know as well. But, our classes when I was in high school, was small because our graduating class in 1949 had, I believe, forty-four or forty-five in the class. And everything – it was really good. Everybody enjoyed I think going to high school under those conditions because I knew every kid in high school by name.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you able to choose the classes you wanted to take?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Basically, you had classes that were mandatory, but we had very few you know side classes, but we all had to take English four years. Had to take Math at least three years and we had to take Science at least I believe two years then they had other classes; you could take Typing and History – you had to take History a certain number of years. Economics, we had economic class. Let's see, we had – I took Latin in high school which I thought was very important and we had Latin when I was freshmen, sophomore I think and - but we had Math – we didn't have a Math classes when we started high school. You started out in Algebra I, went to Algebra II, Geometry and then Solid Geometry, put it that way. We didn't have what they call Math classes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was your dress different when you went to high school?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No, not really. You had to wear the long pants and most of the time, they had a rule that you wore a shirt with a collar. It was just an everyday shirt because back then most of these kids at Karns came in out of farm communities. So they wore practically the same thing to school that they wore at home.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you participate in sports while you were in high school?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, I played basketball in high school and I played baseball. We didn't have a football team at that time, but I played both basketball and baseball.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What year did you graduate?
MR. SHINPAUGH: 1949.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you do after you graduated?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, after I graduated, my plans were to go to UT and walk-on in baseball, but I got injured in a tractor accident just after I got out of high school and I was paralyzed from my waist down. But my father took me to a chiropractor, this was in 1949, and I went to him for months and when the Korean War broke out in 1950, June ’50, he had me well enough I had to go to the Army. So, I always blame this chiropractor on making me go to the Army.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Let's talk a little more about Hardin Valley and you mentioned the Gallaher Ferry. Where was that located?
MR. SHINPAUGH: If you went from Hardin Valley Road down to Gallaher Ferry Road – it was Gallaher Ferry Road at that time. Just as you passed an old grist mill, Hendrick’s Grist Mill and just a short distance past the grist Mill, there was a stream of water, Conner Creek that the grist mill operated off of it and it ran into the river just below the grist mill. Then the Ferry was immediately past the mouth of the Conner Creek that went into the Clinch River.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And where did it exit on the other side?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Just right straight across and the road from there went straight into the Scarboro School area. The old Scarboro School and – but there was quite a bit of traffic there on that road going to and from Anderson County on the Gallaher Ferry. When I was young, a fellow by the name of Hodge Crawford operated that ferry and we called him ‘Catfish Crawford’ because at one time he caught a huge catfish out of that river.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall there was a fare for riding the ferry?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I don't think so. I don't think there was. I'm not sure about this, but I think he was paid by the county. He was just a county employee; they ran that ferry on a cable. They had a steel cable across the river and it had little wood hooks about 12 inches long that you could hook onto the cable and walk to the other end of the ferry and when I was young, I’d go down there and ride that ferry back and forth across – I thought I was helping because I used one of the wood hooks. I probably wasn’t helping much, but anyway I enjoyed riding the ferry across.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, what kind of traffic did the ferry carry?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, mostly just farm people going back and forth to visit people. Most of the people were related out of that part of Knox County with the people in Anderson County and Roane County. They were all related people and it carried old pick-up trucks with farm supplies on it. People sometime brought the produce that farmers in Anderson County grew across the ferry and take it to Knoxville.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Could you get more than one truck on there?
MR. SHINPAUGH: You could get, if I remember right about two small pick-up trucks on the ferry.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, that road by Scarboro School I think it’s the road that today goes out to the park and it goes straight across where the city pumps their water.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I think that's where you’re talking about.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: -the ferry.
MR. SHINPAUGH: But it did – the road came around the side hill – it was a hilly country there and up by the side of the old Scarboro School.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember the Solway Bridge - the old Solway Bridge?
MR. SHINPAUGH: It was built the year I was born, 1930.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall seeing it built?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No, that was the year I was born when they built it so I don't recall anything on that.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Okay, tell me some more about growing up in that area –the Hardin Valley Area and then where did you live there and come over in or tell me about coming over into the Wheat Area.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Okay, when I was very, very young, I was in elementary school 2nd grade or 3rd –somewhere around there my father was building for Mr. T.L. Seibers who owned a lot of property and a lot of buildings in Clinton in the Robertsville Community and West Knox County. He was building for him so we moved over on one of his farms in Robertsville so he would be close to the work he was doing for Mr. Seibers. He worked for T.L. Seibers and Mr. Clyde Peak. Clyde Peak lived right across the street from the Courthouse in Clinton in a big brick home. But he did a lot of building for them and that was the reason we lived there in the Robertsville Community. Our house was directly behind where the Wildcat Den is now. There are some cedar trees up there on that bank and our house was right beside those cedar trees.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, that’s Robertsville Road, 102 Robertsville Road is –.
MR. SHINPAUGH: It was on Robertsville Road, yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: ...where the community, the Town Community Center is at Wildcat Den.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, tell me about Robertsville related to Oak Ridge today. Where was Robertsville in that area?
MR. SHINPAUGH: That area there was the Robertsville Community. The big house next to the Bowling Alley was a big ole’ farm house Mr. Seibers also owned and my uncle lived in it for a while. He was also building for Mr. Seibers. William Lockett had a store there and on the other side of the road that turned down to Wheat, some people by the name of Keyes, had a store there; that was the only two stores there. But let's see what else was there; the swimming pool, when we lived there was a lake, and that’s where I used to play and get muddy. I fished in that lake a lot.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How old were you when you moved to the house there on Robertsville?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I was about, I don't know, nine or ten years old.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me a little bit more about the lake where the swimming pool is today?
MR. SHINPAUGH: It was cold. I say that because I fell in it a lot of times. It was fed by the big spring that’s there. It was a pretty good sized lake. I don't know, I would guess that the lake probably covered close to half an acre. We also raised some cattle on that place.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they graze in the lake?
MR. SHINPAUGH: They used the lake for the water.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I've seen photographs with cows in the water before.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Oh yeah.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall a cabin in that area, a fish camp there?
MR. SHINPAUGH: There was a little cabin next to the spring. A little log cabin there next to the spring, but my mother never allowed us to go in it or do anything with it because it didn't belong to us so she wouldn’t allow us to go in it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned Lockett store. That today is on the corner of Robertsville and –
MR. SHINPAUGH: It’s a beer joint, last time I saw it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: It used to be called Cross Roads Tavern.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Cross Roads Tavern, that’s right.
MR. HUNNICUTT: It’s changed its name. There's another restaurant and another business there today.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Oh, I haven’t seen it in years.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was the other store that you mentioned located?
MR. SHINPAUGH: There was a road that went down by the old Robertsville High School. My older brother went to Robertsville High School and just right across at the side road was the Keyes Store.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about the Lockett store? Did you ever go in there?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Oh, every day, practically. Ms. Lockett was a jewel. She used to give me a piece of candy every time I’d go in the store. She and my mother were real good friends. In fact, my mother visited her after they left the Oak Ridge area. The Locketts were really nice people.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember Nash Copeland having a store?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, Jay Nash had a store there and Jay Glen had a store, I believe on up towards Clinton; Jay Glen Copeland.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where you ever in any of those stores?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, I was in both of those.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Let's go back to the Lockett Store a minute. Describe what you remember how the inside of that store looked like.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Oh goodness. It was just a – I don't know. It was a pretty good size, a little county store and they had a – they carried a lot of goods in there. They had some dry goods which most of the country stores carried and shoes and different things that farm people would use. I remember one story about Mr. Lockett, well it wasn’t a story, it happened. He had, I believe a ‘39 Chevrolet, and of course he bought eggs from the local people and he was taking them to Clinton one time in the back of his Chevrolet car. He ran off the road going to Clinton and turned it over. I remember that story.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The house that you referred to over in the middle of what? It’s now in the middle of Grove's Center used to be next to the Grove Theater. Who did you say lived in that house?
MR. SHINPAUGH: My uncle lived there a while and I was trying to remember the old people that lived there before and I cannot remember their names. Sometimes I remember their names, but we named the house after them. We called it their Old Home Place.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall any other houses right in that area?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Okay, there was a fellow that lived on that road between where we lived and Locketts store. A couple lived there, that were older, in a little house close to that church. Now, my older brother could tell you their names, but I cannot remember. But it was just an older couple and I don't think they had children because I never did see anyone there. I used to stop and talk to them a lot when I was a kid.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, was there any other children around that area that you played with?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, there was some Justice kids lived just up the road from us. In fact, one of the girls, Norma Jean Justice, she’s dead now. I went to elementary school with her over at Scarboro and she had a brother. The high school is now where the old Roberts Farm was. That's where the community got its name and Louise Roberts, the daughter of the Roberts couple, was my school teacher at Scarboro. When I started high school in Karns, she was teaching there. She was married – well, I can't remember who she married, but I don't know whether she’s still living or not. Her brother I think, is still living but he has to be up in his upper 80s. Anyway, I can’t remember –.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall the Justice living in that house by where we talked by the theater at one time?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I don't remember the Justice living there. The Justice I was talking about lived across the road from us, but just up the road just a short distance.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, let’s back up a minute to this –.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Now, there were Justices that lived in a big white house down next to the old Robertsville High School.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about Scarboro School. Did you go there after they rebuilt the school I think the first school caught on fire and they had to rebuild the first school?
MR. SHINPAUGH: They build a new school there before I started there, but it was fairly new when I started, I think, I was in the 3rd grade. This new school had an indoor gym, which was unusual for elementary schools, and they also had a big playground behind the school. They had all kinds of merry-go-rounds, monkey bars, and swings. It was a fantastic set-up for that time and we changed classes every hour which they found out later didn't work especially for elementary school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did you get back and forth to school?
MR. SHINPAUGH: School bus.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And where did you get picked up by the school bus?
MR. SHINPAUGH: School bus picked me up in front of the house, in front of our house. It was just a short distance over to the school though from there. The old road goes off of Illinois over by Y-12, its pretty close to where the road that went to Scarboro School.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Through the gap at Y-12?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yeah, through that gap. Had to go through that gap and there was a church there on the left just before you got to school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: New Hope?
MR. SHINPAUGH: New Hope, yes and one of my teachers at Scarboro was Mrs. Anderson. She lived in the house right close to the east end of Y-12, where it is now. I believe where that new building is that they built.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was the road gravel or paved?
MR. SHINPAUGH: It was gravel.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, that we called the Oak Ridge Turnpike, which was Highway 95 in those days.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that road paved or did you remember?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I cannot remember, that would have been in the early 40s, ‘40, ‘41 or ‘42. I can't remember whether they were paved or not.
MR. HUNNICUTT: My understanding is the road came and turned on Robertsville came up by your house to Lockett store.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Then turned right and went towards what we call Illinois Avenue now over towards Oliver Springs, is that what you remember?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Now, the road that went to Oliver Springs went by Lockett store and Keyes Store and made a bend and went up across the ridge into Oliver Springs.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Is that pretty much in the same location as Illinois is today?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I think its pretty close.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What about Jay Nash Copeland Store? Tell me what you remember about it.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, I just remember going in it, we traded most of the time at Lockett’s because they were close. I could walk there so I used to walk to the store and get what we needed.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was there anything building-wise between Jay Nash’s Store and where you lived on the highway there?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, the Justice family lived there and the Roberts family big house was up on the hill right where the high school is. That's about all I can remember through there and I guess it’s because I knew the Justice kids and I knew the Roberts family.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, you mentioned another store that Mr. Copeland’s brother owned is that correct?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Jay Nash had a store and Jay Glen had a store.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And his store was on the East end of –?
MR. SHINPAUGH: It was up on the East end on the left of the road, I think.
MR. HUNNICUTT: In a house like?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, in a house like.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That's what – by Elza Gate.
MR. SHINPAUGH: I know, yes, just before we get to Elza Gate. But it was on the left; a white house there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were all these stores about the same as far as what they sold?
MR. SHINPAUGH: They are about the same, yes!
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did they allow credit?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Most stores did back then because that's what broke my grandfather during the Depression. Credit broke him. I used to have his ledger with all the credit in it. I don't know what happened – but I did have it at one time. That was something that got a lot of stores in trouble during the Depression. People just didn’t have any money.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned your brother going to Robertsville School?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was Robertsville School located?
MR. SHINPAUGH: It was down sort of west of the Lockett Store on the left back in there. I think there is another school about the same place now.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Robertsville School today is on the location?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Junior high.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Same location?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, it's right where the old school was. Now, this Justice family that lived there lived in a big white house real close to the old high school because I remember they had a daughter that was a really good basketball player.
MR. HUNNICUTT: At that time, what kind of work did your father do?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Carpenter work. He was a builder. He built houses, barns. He did that most of the time, repair work on buildings that Mr. Seibers and Mr. Peak owned.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did he stay pretty much employed during those days?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, pretty much.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you know what kind of money he made?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I don't have any idea. Not much.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did the house you lived in have running water in the house?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How about bathroom? Was it inside or out?
MR. SHINPAUGH: It was outside.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So where did you get your water?
MR. SHINPAUGH: We had a well or a cistern or something there. I don’t know.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you say cistern, what is a cistern?
MR. SHINPAUGH: It's just a hole in the ground that’s been concreted that you put rain water into and hold.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Just a backup?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: In case the well goes dry?
MR. SHINPAUGH: And we did use a lot of water out of that spring back behind the house. That was pretty good water back at that time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: There was a pretty good place to hold water, wasn’t it?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, we didn’t mind it, we were – I don't know. You know, we didn’t’ pay attention to things like that because that’s what everybody did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, the area we're talking about is what’s known as Grove Center Shopping Area today. Other than the house that you described that was by the Grove Theater that we know today? What else was in that area? We mentioned Lockett Store and then a couple of – a church and your house and that house.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Keyes store and I wish I could remember the name of the people that lived there, in another house, but there weren’t many houses there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you ever hear a story about gold being buried in that area some time ago?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No, I haven’t heard that one.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Supposedly, there’s supposed to have been gold buried in that area in the Grove area and some time back.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, now I think that is where they got the name ‘Grove Center’, you remember there’s a big grove of big oak trees there. That's where we used to play.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I think most of those trees are gone, but there’s still some left.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yeah, there was a huge grove of big oak trees in there. It was a real nice place.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, what did you do for fun when you were growing up in that area?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, I fished in that lake most of the time.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, we’re talking about the pond where the swimming pool is?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Where the swimming pool is now. I used to catch a lot of these little fish they call sun perch, the little fancy colored fish. Of course, we always threw them back, but we caught a lot out of them.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, let's go back down the road a piece to Wheat. Tell me about your connection with the Wheat Community.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Okay, now my connection with Wheat Community is my mother's people, who were all Hudsons and they all lived in Roane County, down at Wheat. My great aunt and my grandfather went to Roane College.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Let me state for the record. Tell me where Wheat Community was located. Let's get that out first.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well to me, it was a pretty large community. Most of these rural communities was pretty large. You know, covering a lot of territory, but not many houses and it was just on the east side out of K-25. It’s what I thought of as Wheat when we went down there to church, but my mother's people was scattered all over Roane County. My great, great grandfather Hudson, William W. Hudson lived in the Gravel Hill Community, which it is in Roane County.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, where is Gravel Hill Community?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Gravel Hill is between the X-10 plant and the Clinch River just about, I don't know 4-500 yards from Tower Shielding facility. And that was a community that had a little small church and a one room school house. My great, great grandfather William W. Hudson, I think at one time was postmaster there. There were very few people in that community and he and his wife are buried in that community, close to where the church was.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Back to the Wheat area, what do you remember that was in Wheat? What was there?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, about all I remember being there was the Roane College and some churches and peach orchards. Now, this area that Oak Ridge is in now and downward to Kingston at one time was a huge peach growing area. Back when I was a child, they’d haul peaches out of there, but I think they brought some out on a train. But there was enormous peach orchards down through there. I remember we used to get peaches at Elrod’s Peach Orchards.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where was that located?
MR. SHINPAUGH: That was where Oak Ridge is now, but it was the best I remember in the eastern part of Oak Ridge, what Oak Ridge is now. They was up on that ridge. We used to go there every year and get peaches from Mr. Elrod. I remember he was that little short chubby guy, that’s about all I remember, but we called it Elrod's Peach Orchards.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, back in the Wheat Community, do you remember Wheat School?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I just barely remember Wheat School. When we were kids very young, we went down there to see Robertsville and Wheat play basketball and I cannot remember much about their school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, your relatives that were in the Wheat area, where did they live? Do you recall?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Goodness, well, the ones we visited mostly was in the southern part of the county over in the X-10 area. They lived down that valley where X-10 is now, all the way over to the river.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Bethel Valley?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Bethel Valley, yes. They lived in Bethel Valley, some of them lived on down where the road goes to what is now 321 that comes across there?
MR. HUNNICUTT: Ninety-five?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, ninety-five is what it is, where it crosses the river at Old White Wing Bridge and goes in towards K-25 area. A lot of them lived down through there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall how you got paid – how did you travel in those days?
MR. SHINPAUGH: My father had, what was it? The first vehicle I remember him having was a ‘27 Model Chevrolet. Then we had, I believe a ‘30 Model Chevrolet after that. Then we had a ‘39 Chevrolet car.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall the people you visited over in the Bethel Valley area? What type of homes they lived in?
MR. SHINPAUGH: They were just small frame homes. Most of them had weather boarding which was common back then. What they called weather boarding was the ‘H’ board lapped over the other one and a lot of them just had plank straight up and down boards on the outside.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember what they did for income?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I reckon all of them farmed.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So back over in the Wheat Community, tell me about the college that you recall that was there.
MR. SHINPAUGH: I just remember going to it. You know, I don't remember much about what they had, but it was a big multi-story building. Most of the kids there went in and stayed in dorm rooms and I know my grandfather graduated there in 1897 and my great aunt, she graduated there in 1895.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What were their names?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Hudson, William Mayo Hudson was one that graduated there in ‘97 and Seffie Hudson was the one graduated in 1895.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned a church. Where was the church located?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Best I remember, the church was east, just east of the school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Is that George Jones?
MR. SHINPAUGH: George Jones Church, yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you have relatives buried in that cemetery?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I'm not sure. I think I do, but I haven’t been able to find them, but I think I have relatives buried there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you attend church there at one time?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No, we just went over there to things, like they used to have an all-day singing with what they call “dinner on the ground” and we’d go to those, but my Hudsons relatives went there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So when you’re talking about “dinner on the ground”, what’s that mean?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Means everybody brought a picnic lunch and they set up a table. They set sawhorses up and put boards on them and they’d have table cloths they put over them to make it look pretty good. And everybody brought food and you just helped yourself to it, no matter who brought it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember how old you were when you went to those?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I was probably ten; anywhere from probably eight up through twelve or so.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were your parents pretty strict on you when you were growing up, you and your brothers and sisters?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Oh yes. Well, I don’t know whether you called it strict or not. They expected us to help and of course we had to work. I know when I was in high school, my father at that time was working for TVA on the dams and I’d go home after baseball practice and have to feed the cattle and milk and things like that. We’d have to get up early in the morning and milk the cows before we went to school, but you know everybody did it so it was a way of life. It wasn’t bad.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you went to these singings and “dinner on the ground” did your parents make you go in the church and listen to the singing or –?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No, we all just went. I mean there weren’t’ any questions asked. That was what you did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned your father worked with TVA on the dams. What dam was that he worked at?
MR. SHINPAUGH: He worked down on the Fontana, Watts Bar, Fort Loudon.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was he a carpenter?
MR. SHINPAUGH: He was a carpenter.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, when he worked on the dams, was he gone from home –.
MR. SHINPAUGH: He had to go and stay – they came home on the weekends. Usually, there would be several men around that went and they car pooled back and forth.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where you the man of the house when your father was gone?
MR. SHINPAUGH: After my brothers left, yes, I was the only one there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: In the pecking order, where did you fall?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I was last so everybody wore the clothes before I got them.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, what age differences were between your brothers?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I'm 82, my brother is 88. I had another brother that is dead. He was two years older. He’d be eighty-four. My sister is 90.
MR. HUNNICUTT: By the time you got hand me down clothes, what kind of shape were they in?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Oh, they wasn’t too bad. We didn’t pay attention to that; what kind of shape it was. It’s just what you did.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your mother do all the mending of the clothes?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did she make clothes?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, she made some clothes. Sometimes she’d make me shirts and things. My wife even did that after I worked at X-10.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What else can you tell me about the Wheat Community?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, I just can't remember much about it except it was – to me it was just a typical old farm community like Oak Ridge, or Grove Center, or Robertsville at that time. It was just a typical old farm community where people worked from daylight until dark and on Sundays they’d visit after church and set on the porch and talk.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You mentioned a ferry. Was there another ferry across the Clinch River in that area?
MR. SHINPAUGH: There was one at White Wing.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, White Wing, tell me where that was.
[Conversation interrupted 49:56]
MR. SHINPAUGH: That’s the old highway 95. They put a pontoon bridge in there when they built Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you know how it got its name, White Wing?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No, I do not.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was there another ferry down-stream from White Wing?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I'm not sure whether there was going down to Gallaher – what’s that road that goes down there? There may have been another ferry down there and in the early days say in the 30s, but seems there was another ferry that was down below the Wheat Community. We didn't go that far down very often because back then living in a farm community, you didn’t get too far away from home. You didn't have time to travel or anything. I'm not really sure about that, but seem like I remember people talking about a ferry down below Wheat.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, when your family went somewhere that was basically to visit people that you knew?
MR. SHINPAUGH: It was normally to visit people we knew, yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You had no vacation times back in those days?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No, we didn't – vacation? That word hadn’t been invented then. Vacations came along later.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, after you graduated from high school, tell me again where you lived at that particular point.
MR. SHINPAUGH: We lived in the lower end of Hardin Valley on Hickory Creek Road. MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, which school are we talking about?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Karns.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Okay, when Karns played Oak Ridge –.
[Conversation interrupted 51:56]
MR. SHINPAUGH: When we played Oak Ridge, we had to stop and get passes. Everybody on the bus had to get off and get a pass. In 1949, I think that was the first time we got to just drive on through to Oak Ridge, play baseball.
MR. HUNNICUTT: We’ll get to that in the minute. Let's go back down to the Wheat Area a little bit more. There was a school and then George Jones Church, Roane College; was that the name of the college?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Roane College? That was the name.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall any other buildings in that area?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Goodness, I know my wife's great uncle had a store there. Charlie McKinney had a store there not too far from that church.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Typical dry goods, canned goods and stuff?
[Conversation interrupted 52:54]
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, just a typical little country store. But my grandfather that had a store in West Knox County, he ran a rolling store all over through the Wheat Community.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you mean by rolling store?
MR. SHINPAUGH: He had a truck with the van bed on it and selected groceries in it and he’d go out through the community and they knew when he was coming. He’d buy chickens and eggs from them and trade them groceries for the eggs and chickens. Then, on a certain day of the week he went to Knoxville in his truck and sold all of those eggs and chickens.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When did you meet your wife? Well, let me back up you this question. When you were in high school, did you do a lot of dating or did you have time for that?
MR. SHINPAUGH: We didn’t have a whole lot of time for that. We didn't date much because if you lived in the country on a farm, you just didn’t have time for dating.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, how did you meet your wife?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, we were born on adjoining farms. So I told somebody one time, they asked me about it, I said there was only a barbed wire fence between us.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, how long did you date before you got married and where did you get married?
MR. SHINPAUGH: We got married, let’s see we dated, I don’t know since all through high school and then I went to the Army and spent about two and half years from 1950 to late ’52. And we got married in ‘53 at Mt. Pleasant Church in West Knox County. It was right next door to my grandfather's old country store.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you live when you first got married?
MR. SHINPAUGH: We rented an apartment on Linden Avenue in Knoxville and I was working at K-25.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What did you do at K-25?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I was a Process Operator in the Gaseous Diffusion Plant. I worked in K-33.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what year was that?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I worked there from a – I got out of the Army in late ’52, I think in November, and I worked there from then until 1960, and I transferred to X-10 in 1960.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me a little bit what you remember when you first went to work at K-25.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, I thought it was a big place because I just came out of the Army and went to work there. I was amazed at all the big buildings. We had to go to school for a year to work in cascade operations. We had taken courses in the gaseous diffusion process.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, when you went to work, did you recognize the area where you visited as a young boy?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Oh yes, I recognized the area. It looked just it did, especially the church up there and things. And across from the K-25 plant, it all looked the same, but no houses. There wasn’t any houses anywhere, but it looked about the same.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Back up, let's go back to when you used to come to Oak Ridge from Karns High School to play basketball against the Oak Ridge –.
[Conversation interrupted 56:44]
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, we played most of the time baseball with them.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Baseball?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Once in a while, we’d play them in basketball, but not very often. We played them every year in baseball two or three games.
MR. HUNNICUTT: So, what was the procedure for getting in to Oak Ridge since it was fenced in?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, we'd be in a school bus and we’d come in to the guard station and we'd all get off of the bus and sign in. I think we signed a book if I remember right and then they would issue us a little tag called ‘temporary badge’. I don't know how many people lost it, but you know giving a kid playing baseball, a badge is not very good. But anyway, it wasn’t all that bad but just time consuming. Then we’d had to stop coming out and turned those tags in.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I meant to ask you, where did your family move to when the Manhattan Project came in and you had to leave the area?
MR. SHINPAUGH: We moved to Clinton for a short time. We moved to, I believe it was Depot Street in Clinton because I remember we lived close to Henderson Hardware. That’s where I hung out as a kid because the hardware store was sort of fascinating.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was that Henderson or Hendricks?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Henderson.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Henderson used to be a Hendrickson, Hendrick's Hardware –.
MR. SHINPAUGH: They had a grocery store and hardware. They had everything in this general store. In fact, they still have a store right outside of Clinton towards Oak Ridge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: I don't think so. That's probably the same one what I'm thinking about.
MR. SHINPAUGH: It may have been Hendrickson, but I remember it [inaudible 58:38] Henderson but it may have been Hendrickson.
MR. HUNNICUTT: They were located between Oak Ridge and Clinton on the old road for a long time.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Then they moved over into to Clinton.
MR. SHINPAUGH: But during that time when we lived there, they were just across the railroad from downtown Clinton.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about the gate opening in Oak Ridge? Do you recall that?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, I just remember they had a big ceremony and I'm not sure – I don't believe we went.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That would have been in March of 1949.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, I know it was before we played baseball in ‘49 because – so it had to be in the early spring because we went in without having to sign in.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How did your parents feel when they had to be out of Oak Ridge in a certain period of time?
MR. SHINPAUGH: They thought nothing about it. They just moved and that was it. They didn't think anything about it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your parents own the land they lived on?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No, they lived on the Lawrence Seibers property because that’s who he was working for and my father owned a farm in the Hickory Creek Community, West of Hardin Valley during that time. He owned a farm down there and he bought that farm off of Clyde Peak and T.L. Seibers back – I was five, or six years old. And I remember the deal. I don't know why that stuck in my mind all of these years, but he and Mr. Peak met down there. Mr. Peak got him a plot deed and everything for it. And they shook hands and Mr. Peak said, “Pay me when you can”. That was their agreement.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Don't hear of that much today, do you?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No, that's not kosher today.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you and your wife live in Oak Ridge?
MR. SHINPAUGH: We lived on Hamilton Circle for about let's see about six or seven years.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What type of house was that?
MR. SHINPAUGH: It was a TDU, very well built building.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Describe the inside of that TDU.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Okay, we had two bedrooms in the end next to the joint where the two come together and a bath; good size bath. Good size bedrooms then we had a good sized living room and fairly good size kitchen.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How was that compared to where you first lived when you got married?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, it was better than what rented an apartment on Linden Avenue upstairs in an old home and it was better than the apartment we lived in.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall what type of heat you have in the TDU?
MR. SHINPAUGH: We had electric heat. We bought large electric heaters and put in it. It did real well.
MR. HUNNICUTT: That was about 1952?
MR. SHINPAUGH: It was about 1954; and we bought electric heaters. It was a well-insulated building, very well-insulated.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you remember how much the room rent was per month?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No, I don't, seems like it was $30. I think when I hired in at K-25, I think I only made a dollar and sixty something cents an hour.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have a telephone when you lived on Hamilton Circle?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, we had a telephone.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Were you on a party line at that time?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No, we weren't.
MR. HUNNICUTT: You had an automobile by that time?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes. We had one car.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you worked at K-25, did you work shift work?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, I worked swing shift.
MR. HUNNICUTT: And what's the swing shift?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I worked C shift. They had A, B, C and D shifts and they had them scheduled where you would work forty hours a week and you rotated. One week you’d worked midnight shift, one week day shift, one week evening shift and the fourth shift made it fill in. It worked very good, except the swing shift is not the way to work forever, but it's not bad. I've done worst.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What was your dress requirement when you worked to K-25?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Just work shirts and pants. We just wore very casual dress.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What you wore to work is what you worked in?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, we were not issued clothing or anything.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did you have to clock in and clock out?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, card clock.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Tell me about K-25. Did they have cafeterias? Where did you eat your lunch or supper?
MR. SHINPAUGH: They had a large cafeteria at K-25, but the swing shifters brought their lunch, practically all of them. And each one of the plants like 33 and 31 all had a little kitchen in the control room where you could bring things or you could bring soup and heat it up or – no microwaves. Microwaves weren’t around then, but you could cook things like heat your soup on the stove and had a refrigerator to keep things in it. It worked very good.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Was the job hard?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No, it wasn't hard. It was tedious when you are operating gaseous diffusion equipment, you got to be really, really careful.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How tight was the security in those days?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Oh, it was very tight. If you went from one part of the building to the other or one plant to the other, you had to have they called ‘cover badges’. If I left 33 plant, went over to the top of the cascade, I had to get a cover badge to authorize me to be in there. It is just clipped over the top of your regular badge.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did your wife work when you were first married?
MR. SHINPAUGH: She worked at Liberty Mutual Insurance Company when we were first married.
MR. HUNNICUTT: While you lived in Oak Ridge?
MR. SHINPAUGH: While we lived in Knoxville and our first child was born and so she quit when she was pregnant with her first child. She didn't work anymore until the kids got up in high school.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How long did you live in Oak Ridge?
MR. SHINPAUGH: About six or seven years.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall where you did your grocery shopping when you lived in Oak Ridge?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Over where the mall is now. The grocery store went out of – big chain that went out of business years ago.
MR. HUNNICUTT: A&P?
MR. SHINPAUGH: A&P. That's where we shopped at the A&P store mostly.
MR. HUNNICUTT: When you lived in Oak Ridge, did you feel like you were safe living in the city?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Oh, yes I did. I never feel like I was unsafe anywhere. I never lived anywhere where I felt unsafe.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Did any of your children attend the Oak Ridge schools?
MR. SHINPAUGH: No, they didn't. We moved out when they were young and they went to Karns to school then.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What do you remember about living in Oak Ridge that you like the best?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, I played a lot of sports then and we had fast pitch softball after I quit playing baseball. I played baseball for Union Carbide when I first hired in there. Then they did away with the baseball program, then we started playing fast pitch softball and in the plants, each shift had their own team. We had a golf league, bowling league. Oh Lord, yes we bowled – it was unbelievable how many people in Oak Ridge bowled. I remember we bowled with Norm Rathbone and his wife and they named their team the ‘Shinbones’.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you recall where you bowled? What bowling center?
MR. SHINPAUGH: We bowled at both at Grove Center and over in – you know the over in the new shopping center.
MR. HUNNICUTT: The Arc Lanes?
MR. SHINPAUGH: The Arc Lanes. That was it, but we started at Grove Center.
MR. HUNNICUTT: How good were you in bowling?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, I’ll say that Rathbone and I were – Rathbone was really good bowler and I was pretty fair. I was good enough to bowl on commercial teams, but my wife had never bowled before so she had this huge handicap and we won that league the year we started.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Do you ever recall a team named the Pole Cats?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Pole Cats? Now, that seems familiar.
MR. HUNNICUTT: There was a team in town named the Pole Cats.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yes, that’s familiar.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Where did you play your fast pitch softball?
MR. SHINPAUGH: We played them at Pine Top, Grove Center, down the [Oak Ridge] Turnpike. We played a lot down the Turnpike. Those fields – I don't remember all their names and faces, but I know we played some other place called Pine Top.
MR. HUNNICUTT: What position did you play?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I played third base or second base [inaudible 01:09:50].
MR. HUNNICUTT: Now, each plant had teams and you competed against each other?
MR. SHINPAUGH: Well, each plant had their own league then sometimes we would play against the team in the other plants, but K-25, well the four shifts, each one of them had a team. Then there was teams of people that worked the day shift all of the time; maybe two or three. We’re talking about having a lot young people so we had a lot of sports going on because when you get that many young people together I guess Oak Ridge didn’t have many senior citizens back then.
MR. HUNNICUTT: They do now.
MR. SHINPAUGH: They do now. They got lots of them and those the ones I played softball with and against. And I remember one big ole’ boy that was our pitcher, Herm Steward. He averaged about thirteen, fourteen, fifteen strike outs a game. He could throw a soft ball that look like an aspirin coming at you Big Herm, I played with him for years. [Inaudible 11:06]. Oh goodness, Butter Davis.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Is there anything else we hadn’t covered if you like to talk about?
MR. SHINPAUGH: I don't know. I just enjoyed my time there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Sounds like you had a great time when you lived in Oak Ridge.
MR. SHINPAUGH: I did. I enjoyed living in Oak Ridge. I enjoyed it very much. We had a good time, had good neighbors, good area. As far as I am concerned it was great to live there. We went to Central Baptist Church. It was right below us. We could walk down there.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Right.
MR. SHINPAUGH: Yeah, we went to Central Baptist because it was close, in fact, we don't even walk down the road. We had a trail that went down the hill to it.
MR. HUNNICUTT: Well, Bill it’s been my pleasure to interview you and I believe your all history will be a tribute to the history of Oak Ridge. Thank you very much!
MR. SHINPAUGH: I enjoyed it very much. Thank you!
[End of Interview]
***Editor’s Note: Portions of this transcript have been edited at Mr. Shinpaugh’s request. The corresponding audio and video components have remained unchanged.